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Welcome!
As an online student, most of your interactions with the university will be done through various websites. For example:
- You'll use your USD Email Address for all university-related communications.
- You'll use Canvas for all of your coursework and assignments. See Canvas Tips and Tricks page.
- You’ll use your MySanDiego Portal for tuition payments and to access most campus resources.
- You’ll use this site, your Student Success Center, to get specific information about textbook information, deadlines, and more!
- If you identify as alumni, visit our Alumni page to remain engaged.
(619) 260-5983
Stay Connected with your Program
COMPLETE YOUR MANDATORY NEW STUDENT CHECKLIST
Our number one priority is you! Our team has prepared a checklist of items that will set you up for success and clarify all action items as a new student. After you are enrolled for your first term and receive a confirmation email from a member of our team, please complete and review all of the following before classes start.
1. View Your Mandatory New Student Welcome Webinar
This webinar will go over a comprehensive look at your program and what to expect as an online learner including resources and tips for success. Each webinar should last around 30-40 minutes. Once you have been registered for classes and receive a confirmation email from our team, you will be emailed the link to schedule your welcome webinar to your @sandiego.edu email address.
2. Schedule Your New Student Check-in Call
In this call, you’ll “meet” a member of your Student Success Team for your program. This will be a chance for us to answer any additional questions you have before you start your first term. Please be sure to have any Canvas-related, program-related, or finance-related questions prepared. After attending the Welcome Webinar, you will be prompted to schedule your call using a scheduling link.
3. Complete Your Canvas Orientation Course - Due August 29, 2025
Once you have been registered in your classes, you will be able to access your New Student Orientation Course on Canvas within 4 hours. When accessing Canvas, please make sure to use Firefox or Chrome as your browser.
The New Student Orientation course is designed to help you navigate your way around the course's layout prior to beginning your first class. You will learn where to find the syllabus, course schedule, assignments, and the discussion board.
Your Orientation is mandatory, and must be completed before the first day of class—so we encourage you to get started! Please plan to spend about 6-8 hours completing the Orientation course. You can move through the Orientation at your own pace, so schedule your time accordingly.
Looking for assistance?
4. Finalize Your Tuition Payment Plan
We recommend that students start this planning early as some funding sources can take some time to process. Tuition payments should be completed in full by the first day of the semester. Visit the "Tuition and Payment Methods" section for more information.
5. Review your Student Handbook
Please make sure to review your student handbook prior to the first day of class, and reference it as needed throughout your program. The handbook is where you can find information on academic expectations, drop and refund policy, technology requirements, curriculum, frequently asked questions, and more.
IMPORTANT DATES
Below is a list of significant dates regarding the registration process, payment deadlines, and other important academic and program deadlines.
Fall 2025 Dates and Deadlines
| Important Dates | Date |
|---|---|
| Registration Opens | June 30, 2025 |
| Application Deadline | August 1, 2025 |
| Registration Deadline | August 15, 2025 |
| Orientation Course Due Date | August 29, 2025 |
| Last Day to Drop with 100% Tuition Refund* | September 1, 2025 |
| Payment Due Date | September 2, 2025 |
| Semester Begins | September 2, 2025 |
| First Course Start Date | September 2, 2025 |
| Last Day to Drop with 95% Tuition Refund/ Drop Deadline* | September 5, 2025 |
| Last Day to Withdraw from Course A | September 29, 2025 |
| First Course End Date | October 20, 2025 |
| Second Course Start Date | October 21, 2025 |
| First Course Final Grade Submission Due Date | November 3, 2025 |
| Last Day to Withdraw from Course B | November 17, 2025 |
| Second Course End Date | December 8, 2025 |
| Semester Ends | December 8, 2025 |
| Second Course Final Grade Submission Due Date | December 22, 2025 |
Spring 2026 Dates and Deadlines
| Important Dates | Date |
|---|---|
| Registration Opens | November 3, 2025 |
| Application Deadline | December 1, 2025 |
| Registration Deadline | December 15, 2025 |
| Orientation Course Due Date | January 2, 2026 |
| Last Day to Drop with 100% Tuition Refund* | January 5, 2026 |
| Payment Due Date | January 6, 2026 |
| First Course Start Date | January 6, 2026 |
| Last Day to Drop with 95% Tuition Refund/ Drop Deadline* | January 9, 2026 |
| Last Day to Withdraw from Course A | February 2, 2026 |
| First Course End Date | February 23, 2026 |
| Second Course Start Date | February 24, 2026 |
| First Course Final Grade Submission Due Date | March 9, 2026 |
| Last Day to Withdraw from Course B | March 23, 2026 |
| Second Course End Date | April 13, 2026 |
| Semester Ends | April 13, 2026 |
| Second Course Final Grade Submission Due Date | April 27, 2026 |
Summer 2025 Dates and Deadlines
| Important Dates | Date |
|---|---|
| Registration Opens | March 3, 2025 |
| Application Deadline | April 4, 2025 |
| Registration Deadline | April 18, 2025 |
| Orientation Course Due Date | May 2, 2025 |
| Last Day to Drop with 100% Tuition Refund* | May 5, 2025 |
| Payment Due Date | May 6, 2025 |
| Semester Begins | May 6, 2025 |
| First Course Start Date | May 6, 2025 |
| Last Day to Drop with 95% Tuition Refund/ Drop Deadline* | May 9, 2025 |
| Last Day to Withdraw from Course A | June 2, 2025 |
| First Course End Date | June 23, 2025 |
| Second Course Start Date | June 24, 2025 |
| First Course Final Grade Submission Due Date | July 7, 2025 |
| Last Day to Withdraw from Course B | July 21, 2025 |
| Second Course Final Grade Submission Due Date | August 25, 2025 |
| Semester Ends | August 11, 2025 |
* During the first semester of enrollment, any tuition refund amounts will not include the non-refundable enrollment deposit amount (5% of tuition).
Graduate Student Success Program
Dates: July 28-30th, 2025
The Graduate Student Success Program is an optional opportunity for students to unpack the hidden curriculum of graduate school, connect with other graduate students across the university, and feel empowered to step into the new identity of being a graduate student and scholar. Through workshops and presentations, our virtual program will address questions such as:
- How do I make the most of my experience as a graduate student?
- What if I feel like I don’t belong here?
- How do I interact with faculty as a graduate student?
- How do I tend to my financial wellness while in graduate school?
- What are some strategies to access support?
Download a pdf of your academic calendar
Upcoming Events
Don't miss out on connecting with your University of San Diego global community through a variety of events - featuring academic workshops, cultural celebrations, networking events, and more. There’s something for everyone!
Course Details
program requirements
Completion of all the courses in the prescribed curriculum, of eight 3-unit courses and one 6-unit capstone course for a total of nine courses and 30 units, is required to successfully complete this program.
Course Titles and Descriptions
Engineering and the Health of the Planet (ESH 501)
Students will be introduced to MESH, and the complex adaptive systems that will be examined over the next few months in relation to engineering, health and sustainability. They will begin to develop or enhance their critical thinking skills and ability to question assumptions relating to contemporary practices and processes. Students will explore how changes to earth systems, facilitated or exacerbated by technological developments, affect human health, ecosystems, environmental justice and ethics, within political, economic and social systems. They will develop their sustainability design skills and apply critical lenses to a variety of engineering applications to consider potential negative human and ecosystem health impacts and possible ways to mitigate these. The course will be taught as a series of case studies within a wide range of engineering disciplines and draw where possible on areas specifically connected to the students’ own areas of interest and backgrounds.
Health and the Built Environment (ESH 502)
This course will critically examine the complex interplay of engineering, development, and changes to the built environment, and their impacts on population health from community to global levels. Students will employ transdisciplinary and complex systems approaches to better understand how changes to the built-environment can impact health outcomes, and thereby foster an awareness of the unintended outcomes of their work and the need for intentionality in planning, design and implementation of engineering projects. This course will also cultivate an appreciation of the important, but often overlooked, need to develop social infrastructure in tandem with the development of physical infrastructure.
Sustainable Food (ESH 510)
This course examines the complex and interconnected world of health, politics, economics, ecology, engineering, sustainability, and justice in relation to food systems and food production. We explore the methods and impacts of land use and food production and distribution through a social science and historical lens. An understanding of the complex social factors and unsustainable practices impacting malnutrition, obesity, and non-communicable and communicable diseases will be essential to be able to redress these challenges. Specifically, food insecurity, food deserts, commerciogenic malnutrition, and famine will be critically examined, as will the impact of transnational food monopolies, foreign direct investment, and the World Trade Organization on food cost, accessibility, and safety. Alternative, sustainable, and just practices of food production and distribution that draw on both traditional and contemporary movements will be mined for innovative solutions that promote human, environmental, and planetary health. Prerequisites: ESH 501 and ESH 502
Sustainable Water (ESH 511)
This course explores water and its interconnections with environmental sustainability, social equity, health, and economic development. With the understanding of sustainable access to clean water as a fundamental human right, students will re-envision and create a world where water engineering and management support a healthy ecosystem for both people and the planet. We will explore water scarcity, water access, and engineering innovations in water supply, drinking and waste water, efficiency of distribution, as well as the impact of engineering on water quality and ecosystem health. Throughout the course, students will consider the interrelated aspects of engineering and water in relation to health, justice, and sustainability. The course will adopt a case study approach and students will 'virtually' visit multiple contexts and countries in order to explore the real-life implications of access to life-giving water. Prerequisites: ESH 501 and ESH 502
Sustainable Energy (ESH 520)
This survey course introduces students to energy systems, technologies, governance, and policies through the lens of sustainability. Students completing the course will develop a holistic understanding of how these components currently fit together, the justice and security implications that they create, and how they need to evolve as part to the ongoing energy transition. As part of this journey, students will develop skills for analyzing the state and trends of the U.S. and global energy systems, assessing energy production and consumption data, and evaluating options for delivering energy services in a sustainable and equitable manner. In addition, students will apply the material learned throughout the course to a real-life scenario of their choice and will be able to incorporate the results into their MESH project. Prerequisites: ESH 501 and ESH 502
Getting to Zero Waste (ESH 521)
This course will explore all elements of the global waste problem from recycling and reusing, to reducing consumption and production, and the practicalities of getting to zero waste. We will examine the idea of circular economies and circularity of materials, inspired by nature to reduce our waste to zero. Critique of contemporary and alternative processes will be facilitated by reviewing the interconnected social, political, economic, environmental and technical implications. Case studies will be explored in different parts of the world and framed in new approaches to the ecological paradigm of moving from waste as a problem to ‘waste as a resource’. Prerequisites: ESH 501 and ESH 502
Transitioning to Alternatives (ESH 530)
The “Just Transition” framework, emerging from the intersection of climate justice and labor movements, supports both the environment and the worker through a set of principles, processes, and practices that are place-based and yet universal. These principles, processes, and practices address the root-causes of climate change by working to transform the imperialist, colonial, and hierarchical relationships among Peoples, with the Earth, and with knowledge production to just, equitable, and regenerative relations through cooperative economies, direct democracy, and public-interest knowledge production. In this course, we shall explore the potential and promise of such a transition. We shall explore how to reduce extraction by reducing consumption, how to reduce waste by producing for need instead of profit, and how to create non-hierarchical organizational structures in cooperative economies. We shall evaluate the roots and limits of existing ‘corporate metrics’ that measure “progress” towards sustainability by learning from the experiences of historically and currently marginalized communities that are first and most affected by climate change. We aim at co-creating ‘metrics’ with the grassroots movements that facilitate the path towards a just transition. Prerequisites: ESH 501 and ESH 502
Environmental Justice (ESH 531)
This course will examine the interconnection of industrial and infrastructure development and with environmental issues related to community health, social and environmental justice. Evidence is mounting that unprecedented economic growth experienced by human societies has induced a state of crisis for the Earth’s ecological systems. Many of the public goods provided by them – fresh water, clean air, abundant fisheries, nutritious soils, low sea levels, and moderate weather -- are increasingly at risk. The engineering systems which are needed to support human activity require resource materials and energy at unprecedented rates. Extraction and manufacture of these have the greatest impacts on the most vulnerable societies, which have already suffered the historical impacts of colonization. In this course, we will explore specific issues in an applied, place-based framework, focusing on ways of understanding larger challenges as they manifest themselves. We will also ask fundamental questions about environmental justice, exploring how social power dynamics along racial, economic, and cultural lines are pertinent to understanding people’s disproportionate access to clean, safe, and productive environments, on the one hand, and their unequal exposure to environmental harms, on the other. Through the examination of contemporary case studies, students in this course will be able to demonstrate an advanced level of understanding about the social causes and consequences of environmental racism and inequality, as well as the ways that innovation in engineering can alternately perpetuate environmental inequality and alleviate it. Prerequisites: ESH 501 and ESH 502
Capstone Project (ESH 540)
Participants will embark on a practicum or research project in which they critically review current knowledge and practice in one area of interest and either develop a model and feasibility study or a significant change to their own or others' practice and explore the impact of this change. This project will run throughout the entire program and relate to all courses. They will be supported throughout the process with critical thinking skills, as well as sustainable design tools and methodologies. For professionals, the project could be based on their own work context. For participants who are not engaged in practice, projects can be arranged as internships for other organizations (online or face to face at a location accessible to participants). It is also possible to conduct a research study for an intended audience. The project might include, but is not limited to: a feasibility study for the development of a new interdisciplinary sustainability/health/engineering process within an organization; conducting a feasibility study and design of a locally appropriate interdisciplinary intervention in a specific context; collaboration with a community organization or NGO/INGO to design a project or training scheme for engineers and healthcare and development professionals in local culture, environmental, health issues, and human rights; design projects that identify and incorporate appropriate solutions for collaboration between environmental scientists, engineers and health and/or development professionals. Students publish their final work in a special issue of the MESH magazine enabling them to present their projects to a global audience. Prerequisites: ESH 501, ESH 502, ESH 510, ESH 511, ESH 520, ESH 521, ESH 530, and ESH 531
Canvas @ USD
In your program, you can think of Canvas as your virtual tool to share information with professors and peers. You will use Canvas to access your course content, find course syllabi, review your assignments, and more. Be sure to use your USD credentials to log in. If you have any difficulty logging into your course, be sure to contact ITS at (619) 260-7900 or [email protected].
Netiquette Guidelines
The concept of netiquette covers proper communication online. Read our guidelines to help cultivate a supportive and productive online environment.
your partners toward success
At USD, you join a community of individuals who are all committed to one common goal: your success. As you familiarize yourself with your team, take the opportunity to virtually meet and connect with the resources available to you as a student. Click on the profiles below to learn more about each office or staff member and watch a brief video about their role in supporting you through graduation.
USD Quick Links
- USD Directory (For Faculty or Staff Contact Information)
- Torero Hub
- Health and Wellness
- SOLES Graduate Writing Center
- Military and Veterans Program Center
- Disability and Learning Difference Resource Center
- Copley Library
- Career Development Center
- Campus Recreation (Remote and On-Campus Classes Offered)
Career and professional resources
Whether you're hoping to find a new job or earn a promotion, USD has a wealth of resources available to prepare you for your dream role.